Signs of ObamaCare's failings mount daily, including soaring insurance costs, looming provider shortages and inadequate insurance exchanges. Yet the law's most disturbing feature may be the Independent Payment Advisory Board. The IPAB, sometimes called a "death panel," threatens both the Medicare program and the Constitution's separation of powers. At a time when many Americans have been unsettled by abuses at the Internal Revenue Service and Justice Department, the introduction of a powerful and largely unaccountable board into health care merits special scrutiny. For a vivid illustration of the extent to which life-and-death medical decisions have already been usurped by government...

Health Care: Kathleen Sebelius' claim she can't waive a rule to save a 10-year-old's life is rich, given she was last seen doling out ObamaCare waivers like candy to union groups. Welcome to the world of politicized health care. This week, lawmakers pressed Sebelius, who heads the Health and Human Services Department, to step in to help a Pennsylvania girl suffering cystic fibrosis in urgent need of a lung transplant. Because she's only 10, Sarah Murnaghan can't access lungs from adult donors, only those from children, of which there are none currently available. [snip] Whether Sebelius should have intervened in...

A dying girl who needs a lung transplant and only has weeks to live has will receive the long-awaited lung transplant she so desperately needs. Sarah Murnaghan, the 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl dying of cystic fibrosis, received national attention after HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius refused to help.

Last week, a federal judge ordered Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to allow 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan, who suffers from cystic fibrosis, to be moved to the adult lung transplant list. That gives her a better chance of receiving a potentially lifesaving transplant. Sarah Murnaghan's fate should force us to examine our organ transplant policy. There are more than 88,000 Americans on the organ transplant waiting list. Roughly 10 percent of them will die before receiving an organ. These lost lives are not so much an act of God as they are an act of Congress because of...

House Republicans on Tuesday pressed the country’s top health official to cut through the government red tape in order to let a dying child have a chance at getting a lung transplant, as Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius continued to argue that the situation is "difficult." Sebelius, ultimately, did not say what the government would do in the high-profile case of 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan, who is dying from cystic fibrosis but cannot get an adult lung until they are offered first to adult patients. Georgia Republican Rep. Tom Price, a doctor, told Sebelius that he understands the federal...

Sarah Murnaghan, a victim of ObamaCare at the tender age of just ten years old has beaten back the Death Panel, at least for now. Thanks to the intervention by federal judge Michael Baylson, Sarah got her urgently needed and life saving lung transplant with no time to spare. This is open defiance of Death Panel Czarina Kathleen Sebelius' order that she be allowed to die because it's simply against the rules to allow a child to receive adult lungs. Ignore the fact that the child's doctors all insist that adult lungs would work in Sarah's case. The Czarina hath...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius rebuffed an appeal from Rep. Lou Barletta on behalf of a girl who needs a lung transplant but can’t get one because of a federal regulation that prevents her from qualifying for a transplant. “Please, suspend the rules until we look at this policy,” Barletta, a Pennsylvania Republican, asked Sebelius during a House hearing Tuesday on behalf of Sarah Murnaghan, a 10-year-old girl who needs a lung transplant. She can’t qualify for an adult lung transplant until the age of 12, according to federal regulations, but Sebelius has the authority to waive that...

If I were the parent of a child who might be kept alive -- if only for a few more years -- by a lung transplant, I would move Heaven and Earth to get it done. It's completely understandable that the parents of 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan have made her an Internet and cable news celebrity in a desperate effort to get her on the adult list for a lung transplant. No one with a particle of human sympathy can fail to be moved by the family's situation. The story, however, has loosed a torrent of demagoguery -- some of it...

Dan Calabrese is yet another to highlight that Governor Palin foretold of “death panels,” for which she was mercilessly criticized. The truth is, unfortunately, that she was right–again. As she pointed out Tuesday on Facebook: And they called us liars when we spoke of “death panels” – faceless bureaucrats coming between you and your doctor to make life and death decisions about a loved one’s survival. It doesn’t sound so far fetched anymore, does it? Via Cain TV, Calabrese writes (emphasis added): Not that she’ll get credit for it, but when Sarah Palin warned of “death panels” resulting from the...

<p>Sarah Murnaghan, the 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl dying of cystic fibrosis, is receiving her long-awaited lung transplant.</p>
<p>According to a Facebook post from Sarah’s mother, Janet, the family received word this morning of new lungs that had been made available, and Sarah is currently in surgery. The operation could take anywhere from six to 12 hours.</p>

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has to be the most coldhearted person in America. Sarah Murnaghan, a 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl, has end-stage cystic fibrosis. She is on a ventilator and will die in about a month without a lung transplant. Doctors say Sarah’s best hope for survival would be to go on the waiting list for adult lungs rather than continue on the list for pediatric lungs. Unfortunately for Sarah, there is something informally called the Under-12 rule, which says that children under 12 cannot receive adult organs unless adults and teens in their region refuse them...

Pa. girl who took on donor rules gets transplant Associated PressAssociated Press – 12 mins ago PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A 10-year-old girl whose efforts to qualify for an organ donation drew public debate over how donated lungs are allocated was getting a transplant Wednesday, her family said. Sarah Murnaghan, who suffers from severe cystic fibrosis, was receiving the transplant Wednesday at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, a family spokeswoman said. Her health was deteriorating when a federal judge intervened on June 5, giving her a chance at the much larger list of organs from adult donors. The case could bring change...

If Sarah Murnaghan were 12 years old, she would be at the top of the adult lung transplant list because she only has weeks to live and a lung transplant would as-good-as cure her of cystic fibrosis. But she's not 12, and if she doesn't get new lungs, she might not even make it to 11. "We are not asking for preference for Sarah, we are asking for equality," Sarah's mother, Janet Murnaghan, said in a press release. "We strongly believe Sarah should be triaged based on the severity of her illness, not her age." Organ Donation: Should Younger Patients...

Portrait of a bureaucratic nightmare: A little girlâ€™s dying from cystic fibrosis and has three to five weeks to live unless she gets a lung transplant before then. The good news is that adult lungs can be modified for a child her age in a way thatâ€™ll save her life â€” except that, because sheâ€™s only 10, sheâ€™s not eligible for them. The â€śadultâ€ť list starts at 12; everyone younger than that goes to the childrenâ€™s list, where lungs are much harder to come by. The question is, does Sebelius have the authority to suspend those age limitations and make...

Now, I mentioned earlier in the program that "A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the US Health and Human Services Secretary to suspend existing organ allocation rules to give a 10-year-old Pennsylvania girl a better chance at a life-saving lung transplant." The judge is Michael Baylson. He´s a Bush, George W. Bush appointee. Judge Baylson "told Kathleen Sebelius to direct the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, or OPTN, to make an exception to the so-called ´Under-12´ rule as it applies to Sarah Murnaghan, who has end-stage cystic fibrosis, for at least 10 days, until a hearing on June 14.

A federal judge in Philadelphia has made a dying 10-year-old eligible to seek donor lungs from an adult transplant list. U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson says he is granting the temporary request because of the severity of Sarah Murnaghan's condition. Her mother, Janet Murnaghan, says the family is thrilled by the ruling. It's in effect until a June 14 court hearing. The family is challenging organ transplant rules that say children under age 12 must wait for pediatric lungs to become available. The Murnaghans say that rarely happens. Sarah's doctors believe they can perform a successful transplant with adult lungs....

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to allow 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan to be moved to the adult lung transplant list, giving her a better chance of receiving a potentially life-saving transplant. The quick and unusual ruling, made after a hastily scheduled emergency hearing, follows a campaign by the family and some members of Congress to pressure the Obama administration to change a federal policy that puts children under age 12 at the bottom of the list of those who can receive donated adult lungs. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/sarah-murnaghan-lung-transplant-ruling-kathleen-sebelius-92299.html#ixzz2VSM7MrLz

The campaign to move a dying 10-year-old onto the waiting list for adult lungs has succeeded: Wednesday afternoon Sarah Murnaghan underwent transplant surgery in Philadelphia and she has a good chance at a longer life. What may never be known is who may have suffered in her stead. When one person moves up an organ transplant waiting list, another person may move down If all goes well, the young cystic fibrosis patient will get a fresh start on childhood, able to spend time with friends, play sports and do other normal kid things, Samuel Goldfarb, her doctor at Children’s Hospital...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius rebuffed an appeal from Rep. Lou Barletta, R-Pa., on behalf of a girl who needs a lung transplant but can’t get one because of a federal regulation that prevents her from qualifying for a transplant. … “I would suggest, sir, that, again, this is an incredibly agonizing situation where someone lives and someone dies,” Sebelius replied. “The medical evidence and the transplant doctors who are making the rule—and have had the rule in place since 2005 making a delineation between pediatric and adult lungs, because lungs are different than other organs—that it’s based...